Clean My Mac X

[pm-r]

App Cleaner i have used with customers for about a year now. it has always done a tonne of help in speeding up their system. Thats App Cleaner with the space in between, the logo should resemble two blue triangles (or mountains). Have a look its very easy and free.

Does it have any advantages over its diect competition AppCleaner (without the space), or others which is FREE and can save $10.00??

AppCleaner 3.5 free download for Mac | MacUpdate
App Cleaner & Uninstaller 6.7 free download for Mac | MacUpdate


PS: I have a few fairly knowledgeable Mac using friends who use "CleanMyMac X" and are quite satisfied with it. But I would question how good or careful it is for "cleaning" some Mac stuff, especially for $40.00 which is apparantly /year!! Ouch!!!

Waaay too much for such a utility IMHO:
CleanMyMac X 4.4.3 free download for Mac | MacUpdate


- Patrick
======

 

[rachalmers]

Had clean my Mac on mine for an hour or two. It’s as bad as a virus, and just as difficult to get rid of.
Why use third party app, when it’s all built into the Mac?
And of course.. free programs? They never are. In fact a lot of them are nothing more than fancy interfaces to the existing Apple interface.



Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[harryb2448]

I for one would not touch Ukraine or Russian software.

 

[krs]

Does it have any advantages over its diect competition AppCleaner (without the space), or others which is FREE and can save $10.00??

AppCleaner 3.5 free download for Mac | MacUpdate
App Cleaner & Uninstaller 6.7 free download for Mac | MacUpdate


PS: I have a few fairly knowledgeable Mac using friends who use "CleanMyMac X" and are quite satisfied with it. But I would question how good or careful it is for "cleaning" some Mac stuff, especially for $40.00 which is apparantly /year!! Ouch!!!

Waaay too much for such a utility IMHO:
CleanMyMac X 4.4.3 free download for Mac | MacUpdate


- Patrick
======

Patrick,

You do realize jamison553 is a brand new member....

Normally everyone cries SPAM when they see that.

 

[krs]

Why use third party app, when it’s all built into the Mac?

My question exactly!

 

[pm-r]

Patrick,

You do realize jamison553 is a brand new member....

Normally everyone cries SPAM when they see that.

Yup!! I just thought I would fire a warning shot, blow the smoke from the barrel, and then just put my pistol back into my holster.


- Patrick
======

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Why do you even need a general external maintenance tool for OS X?

Years ago, OS X had a built in maintenance routine that run in the wee hours of the morning if your Mac was not shut down and if it was shut down, it was supposed to run when the Mac was booted up again.
The latter apparently didn't always work, but I leave my Mac on 24/7 and haven't found any need to run any external maintenance routines.

They are still there, and they still run. They used to be called "chron scripts" after the Unix routine that ran them. However, it is a misnomer to call them "maintenance scripts". They are more properly called "housekeeping scripts." Because they really don't do any actual maintenance.

You can find a rundown of what the built-in maintenance routines do at:

What will happen if I never do the daily, weekly, monthly bit? - Ars Technica OpenForum

When does /etc/daily.local run? - Apple Community

Basically all the built-in Unix housekeeping scripts do is clear out old logs, and take stock of tasks that are overdue, such as backing up files or sending mail.

No caches are cleared, no repair routines are run.

As of OS X 10.5 the maintenance scripts are no longer handled by the Unix facility "cron", they are now handled by a similar facility called "launchd," if that means anything to you.

 

[Rod]

Last night I shut down my MBP, first time in a week or so. This morning I booted up and after the login screen came up the device shut down again, then restarted with the "Your computer restarted because of a problem....." after choosing the option to report to Apple I tried to launch OnyX Maintainence app only to get halfway through and the device restarted again. Same message as above, I ignored it this time ran DetectX, found nothing, ran First Aid from Disk Utility, found nothing, then ran Maintainence. Restarted and now all seems fine. I know I was on some dodgy sites last night and that may have been a part of the problem but my point here is; if your usage is routine, if you never engage in "risky" behaviour like clicking on links to unknown sites or from untrusted sources and take all the appropriate precautions you may never need maintainenece apps and the routines that do run automatically may suffice. However if not then these "cleaning" or repair/maintenance routines may well prevent a lot of problems.

 

[krs]

They are still there, and they still run. They used to be called "chron scripts" after the Unix routine that ran them. However, it is a misnomer to call them "maintenance scripts". They are more properly called "housekeeping scripts." Because they really don't do any actual maintenance.

What maintenance should be done, if any.

On the older macOS, I remember asking my daughter who had her current MacBook pro for about 8 years when the last time was that she ran "fix permissions" in disk utility on her old macOS.
Her reply was "Fix permissions? What's that?"

Nobody in my family seems to do any maintenance on any of their Macs including me.
The only time I clear out the cache if there is a problem that may relate to that, but most times clearing the cache doesn't solve the problem.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

What maintenance should be done, if any.

Funny you should ask. I have an entire Web site devoted to that:

OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting

Recent Macs don't need much. You no longer need to repair permissions, as they are now immutable.

Some folks like to run Disk Warrior, but unless you have a problem that can't be fixed using Disk Utility/First Aid, I don't think that it is worth purchasing anymore.

Macs are growing more and more to not need much or any routine maintenance.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

...if your usage is routine, if you never engage in "risky" behaviour like clicking on links to unknown sites or from untrusted sources and take all the appropriate precautions you may never need maintainenece apps and the routines that do run automatically may suffice. However if not then these "cleaning" or repair/maintenance routines may well prevent a lot of problems.

"Maintenance" and anti-malware are two entirely different things.

Visiting dodgy Web sites does not cause you to have to run maintenance. Though it may require that you run anti-malware or at least anti-adware software.

The Macintosh has several different anti-maiware routines built-in, and they are fairly effective, but they look for little or no adware.

This is what is built-in to recent versions of the Mac OS to thwart malware:

XProtect/File Quarantine/Gatekeeper/MRT/SIP

Gatekeeper (macOS) - Wikipedia
Gatekeeper (macOS) - Wikipedia
About the "Are you sure you want to open it?" alert (File Quarantine / Known Malware Detection) in OS X - Apple Support
http://www.macworld.com/article/1165408/mountain_lion_hands_on_with_gatekeeper.html
The Safe Mac
>> Mac Malware Guide : How does Mac OS X protect me?
https://eclecticlight.co/2018/01/20/just-what-do-xprotect-and-mrt-protect-your-mac-from/
https://eclecticlight.co/2017/12/21...erra-and-high-sierra-is-now-finally-released/
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/101/2019/02/macos-protect-malware/

 

[pm-r]

Macs are growing more and more to not need much or any routine maintenance.

I've found that doing an occasional Shutdown and then a fresh boot seems to help keep things running well, in fact I now do it weekly as part of my Sunday am Mac "maintenance" routine.

Otherwise my iMac is on 24/7 but sleep it at night.



- Patrick
======

 

[harryb2448]

Funny you should ask. I have an entire Web site devoted to that:

OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting

Recent Macs don't need much. You no longer need to repair permissions, as they are now immutable.

Some folks like to run Disk Warrior, but unless you have a problem that can't be fixed using Disk Utility/First Aid, I don't think that it is worth purchasing anymore.

Macs are growing more and more to not need much or any routine maintenance.

Particularly Randy as Alsoft have yet to come up with a version to rebuild APFS disks using their Disk Warrior..

 

[krs]

Funny you should ask. I have an entire Web site devoted to that:

OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting

Tons of good information - takes a while to digest.

Don't know if this is mentioned in defragmentation, but when I do a back up with either CCC or SD, I found that the back up has essentially no fragmentation compared to the drive I made the backup from.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Particularly Randy as Alsoft have yet to come up with a version to rebuild APFS disks using their Disk Warrior..

Yes, it's a real drama going on there. Apple is withholding some of the specs for APFS, making it practically impossible for Alsoft to update Disk Warrior for APFS.

However, the good news is the whole point of APFS is to make the Mac's file system more robust. So, if you are using APFS, you may never have the need for Disk Warrior.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Tons of good information - takes a while to digest.

Don't know if this is mentioned in defragmentation, but when I do a back up with either CCC or SD, I found that the back up has essentially no fragmentation compared to the drive I made the backup from.

Yes, I do mention this on my Routine Maintenance Web site. Cloning a hard drive and then copying everything back to the original drive is a [long] way to defragment a rotating disk hard drive, but it isn't as good a way to accomplish that as using iDefrag to defragment your hard drive is. The Mac OS's Unix underpinnings like to have certain things is certain places for the best performance. Cloning is sort of a random way to defragment things, while iDefrag applies some rules to the defragmentation so that everything is optimized for best performance.

Of course, the above is all moot if you are using an SSD. SSD's don't need to be defragmented, and in fact attempting to defragment an SSD might seriously negatively impact it's lifespan.

 

[rachalmers]

Like I said...
-> About This Mac -> Storage -> Manage -> Recommendations -> Reduce Clutter and look around therein.
Anything else, leave it up to the Mac. Certainly if running anything that’s reasonably new.
Lots of people coming from a Windows background want to do the same to their macs.
Rule 1. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Rule 2. Refer to rule 1



Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[pm-r]

Anything else, leave it up to the Mac. Certainly if running anything that’s reasonably new.
Lots of people coming from a Windows background want to do the same to their macs.
Rule 1. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Rule 2. Refer to rule 1

Now, if only some of the Apple OS and app developers and their bosses would heed either rule.


- Patrick
======

 

[krs]

Now, if only some of the Apple OS and app developers and their bosses would heed either rule.


- Patrick
======

How true !!!!

 

[chscag]

Yes, it's a real drama going on there. Apple is withholding some of the specs for APFS, making it practically impossible for Alsoft to update Disk Warrior for APFS.

I'm not sure that even if Disk Warrior should somehow figure out how to repair APFS drives, that it's worth paying $119.95 for a single license. And, as you stated, APFS formatting is much more robust and resistant to corruption.